clean bill of health by US sanitation inspectors.

Norwegian Majesty , Norwegian Crown , Nordic Empress , Zenith and Horizon , which sail to the Island from their home ports of New York and Boston every week in the summer months, all passed tough sanitation tests by US inspectors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At the top of the league is Nordic Empress , which received a score of 96 percent when it was inspected in February.

Norwegian Crown and Horizon were given scores of 94 percent while Zenith received 93 percent and Norwegian Majesty was given a pass mark of 88 percent.

All the inspections took place earlier this year.

Areas of concern to inspectors include the vessel's water supply, food storage and preparation, personal hygiene of staff and the general cleanliness of the ship. Liners that fail to score more than 85 percent in the tests are given a re-inspection once the ship's management have carried out "corrective action''.

And authorities also have the power to keep ships in port if standards of hygiene on board fail to make the grade.

A spokeswoman for the Vessel Sanitation Programme, the branch of the CDC that carries out the inspections, said: "All passenger cruise ships arriving at US ports are subject to unannounced inspection under the voluntary inspection programme.

"The purpose of the inspections is to achieve levels of sanitation that will minimise the potential for gastrointestinal disease outbreaks on these ships.

Such outbreaks are infrequent but may be serious when they do occur.

"A score of 86 or higher at the time of inspection indicates that the ship is providing an accepted standard of sanitation.

"In general, the lower the score the lower the level of sanitation.

"However, a low score does not necessarily imply an imminent risk of an outbreak of gastrointestinal disease. CDC reserved the right to recommend that a ship not sail when circumstances so dictate.'' The decision will be especially good news for the Horizon , which was hit by outbreaks of salmonella poisoning in 1995 and Legionnaire's disease in 1994.

Although Bermuda's liners all sailed through the inspection, some of the world's most prestigious ships have been found to be breaking basic hygiene standards, with cockroaches, rodents and toxic mould posing a threat to passengers' health.

The world's best known luxury liner, Queen Elizabeth 2 , scraped through the test with a score of 87 last year and failed the inspection the year before.

And the 800-berth Black Watch , which has also visited Bermuda frequently in the past, also failed the inspection recently.

Last night Director of Tourism Gary Philips said he was not surprised that visiting liners maintained high standards of hygiene.

"The contracts that we have with all our cruise liners, particularly over the last ten years, have paid particular attention to environmental issues,'' he said.

"One of the things we do is pass the agreement by the Environment Minister and we have had no problem getting the ships to sign the agreement.'' Healthy ships: Horizon was given high marks by the Centers for Disease Control along with Bermuda's other regular callers.